1 janv. 1243 av. J.-C. - Calydonian Boar Hunt

Description:

King Oeneus of Calydon held annual harvest sacrifices to the gods on the sacred hill. One year the king forgot to include Artemis in his offerings. Insulted, Artemis loosed the biggest, most ferocious wild boar imaginable on the countryside of Calydon. Oeneus sent messengers out to look for the best hunters in Greece, offering them the boar's pelt and tusks as a prize. Among those who responded were some of the Argonauts, Theseus and Pirithous, Oeneus' own son Meleager, and the huntress Atalanta. Many of the men, led by Kepheus and Ankaios, refused to hunt alongside a woman. Nonetheless it was Atalanta who first succeeded in wounding the boar with an arrow, although Meleager finished it off, and offered the prize to Atalanta, who had drawn first blood. But the sons of Thestius, who considered it disgraceful that a woman should get the trophy where men were involved, took the skin from her, saying that it was properly theirs by right of birth, if Meleager chose not to accept it. Outraged by this, Meleager slew the sons of Thestius and again gave the skin to Atalanta. Meleager's mother, sister of Meleager's slain uncles, took a cursed brand from the chest where she had kept it and threw it once more on the fire; as it was consumed, Meleager died on the spot, as the Fates had foretold.